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June 3, 2025 • 14 mins
Gangster Dutch Schultz may have left someone a big surprise in the woods.
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is Hudson River Radio dot Com. I'm Linda Zimmermann.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Brian Harrowitz, and this.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Is Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson River Radio
dot Com. Welcome Murder Podcast fans. I understand Brian has
something unusual for us this evening.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I do. I was kind of fascinated when I found
this case. It's a short one tonight, but if you
don't own a shovel, you're probably gonna go to the
hardware store by the end of this. By the end
of this, all right, bring it on.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
I am intrigued.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, all right, I'm not even gonna give you an intro.
Let's just hop right in. Okay, all right, we're going
to talk about Arthur Simon Flagenheimer. Okay, don't bother writing
that down.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
He was born in nineteen oh two in the Bronx,
New York. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Germany. They
did not have a lot of money, which most immigrants
did not, and they wound up living in the slums
of the Bronx area at the time. Arthur's father would
wind up abandoning his family when Arthur was in his
early teens, so he wound up dropping out of school

(01:13):
to take odd jobs to make money to support his
own family, which sucks, But he took a job with
Schultz Trucking in the Bronx, an established company. It didn't
take Arthur long to figure out that criminal activity made
a lot more money than an honest day's work at
Schultz Trucking in the Bronx. So at seventeen, he wound

(01:37):
up getting arrested for burglary and went to prison for
a year and a half, back when they would put
seventeen year olds in prison. He then went right back
to both Schultz Trucking and the gang life. He started
going by the name Dutch Schultz because Flagenheimer was not
an intimidating name.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Kay, this sounds familiar, uh.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Huh, and he felt that Flagenheimer was too long for
newspaper headlines. What do you think is going on in
his head? Okay, gangster, A little Dutch Schultz action coming here.
So prohibition started in nineteen twenty outlawing delicious alcohol in
the United States with a few exceptions. So Dutch logically

(02:24):
became a bootlegger. He got involved in bootlegging liquor and
teamed up with other gangsters like Lucky Luciano and Legs Diamond,
both of whom, even if you don't know a lot
about them, you've probably heard their names. Because I need
a nickname like that. Maybe by the end of this
episode we can come up with something good. So Dutch
wound up buying into a speakeasy, which was an illegal

(02:45):
saloon and probably a whole lot of fun. I can
only imagine. You know, you had to know your password,
you have to knock on the door, you had to whatever.
You had to have connections in order to take easy.
So it sounds like except for the you know, the
gangster criminal pace for the murder, all that other stuff. Yeah,
but except for that, it sounds like a lot of fun.

(03:07):
He was ruthless. He formed his own gang with a
friend named Joey. It's either Noe or no. It's noe
but no accent over it. So I'm gonna say Joey
no because that sounds more gangstery. Yeah, And they began
to intimidate other speak any other speakeasy owners into buying
beer from him, to the point where he would kidnap

(03:28):
and torture the other speakeasy owners who refused to buy
the beer from him. Okay, so yeah, ruthless, I would say, yes.
Their business expanded from the Bronx South into Manhattan, and
that started a tough thing with Leg's Diamond. His former
associate Joey was shot and killed by a member of

(03:51):
Diamond's gang in October of nineteen twenty eight. So Dutch
ordered the murder of Diamonds associate Arnold Rostein Legs.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Diamonds, I know that name.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Okay, yes, all right, do you want to expand on that?

Speaker 1 (04:05):
No, no, no, it's part of another story.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
But yeah, we can absolutely dig into the gangster world
because man talk about we've mentioned pushpins and string and
spider webs. That is this spideriest web. Yeah. So Leg's
Diamond himself was killed in nineteen thirty one, likely by
order of Dutch Schultz. He had conflicts with other gangsters

(04:30):
as well as you do when you expand outside of
your own territory. Dutch expanded his business into illegal gambling.
He set up slot machines, He ran his own lottery,
which is a big money maker. Yeah, he increased business.
His increased business caught the attention of law enforcement. Because
you can only hide for so long.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
And you can only pay off so many right.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
And you can only handle so much money before it
starts to attract attention. Dutch was indicted on a tax
in nineteen thirty three. He spent almost four year. Yeah
he spent who else? I wonder who who else got caught.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Up at the tight en love me thing.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah. He spent almost a year in hiding before just
surrendering in late nineteen thirty four. He was tried twice,
the first one ending in a hung jury and the
second one being in acquittal.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Believe it or not, well, jurors did tend to be
threatened or get paid. Yeah, in these trials. Yeah, I'm
sure most of them were terrified. If not, right, if not,
you know, compensated, shall we say?

Speaker 2 (05:36):
I don't really know. So we're going to take one
quick break now, Okay, think about that kind of stuff there,
and we're going to come back and dig a little
bit deeper into Dutch. So stick around. This is Hudson
River Radio dot Com. Hudson River Radio dot Com.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
All right, Well, I am sitting here with my shovels
ready to start digging, but I don't know what I'm
digging for you. All right, we'll I have an idea.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
But let's go on. We'll get there by this point,
Remember I said that lone Fort he had gotten law
enforcement's attention. At this point with a much money and
crime floating around well, New York Special Prosecutor Thomas E.
Dewey took a special interest in Dutch Schultz, along with
a number of other gangsters. He would later become governor

(06:30):
of New York. He is the one that also lost
the presidential elections to both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
He is the Dewey in the newspaper that true riled up.
You know, Dewey defeats Truman. That's this Dewey. He wanted
to grab Dutch on his illegal businesses, but the FEDS
swooped in first and grabbed him on more tax evasion charges,

(06:53):
so you kind of lost out on that. In anticipation
of all these legal troubles, Dutch had a special air
tight and water tight metal safe constructed. He supposedly put
about seven million dollars in cash, gold, and bonds inside,
and with the help of a bodyguard, he buried it

(07:14):
somewhere in the town of Phoenicia, New York. All Right,
Phoenicia is north of Poughkeepsie, a little bit right of Kingston,
south of southwest of Albany, Upstate New Yorkish area Hudson
North End. Yeah yeah, yeap. However, Dutch blamed Dewey for

(07:35):
all of his legal problems, even though he got swooped
up by the Feds and he met with the gangster
syndicate about having Dewey quote unquote removed. The other bosses
did not want to be involved in murdering a public
figure like that and denied Dutch's request. Dutch threatened to
do it anyway, and the gangsters did not want to

(07:55):
be involved with this, so the gangsters hired murder Inc.
And ordered a hit on Dutch himself instead to get
Dutch out of the way. Okay, right, you don't really
want to stir the pot when you don't have to. Right.
On October twenty third, nineteen thirty five, Dutch, Schultz and
four of his associates were gunned down at the Palace
Chop House in Newark, New Jersey, but they all survived

(08:20):
long enough to make it to the Newark City Hospital. Okay,
Murders Inc. Did not do a great job.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
No, apparently not.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
I don't know if they have a money back guarantee
or not. Probably not. They all survived long enough to
make it to the hospital, but they were all dead
within two days, So I guess in the end they
did their job objective met right, Yeah, except for Dutch Schultz.
He hung on for another day in the hospital, another
twenty four hours.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Did he squeal?

Speaker 2 (08:50):
He was delusional, believe it or not. He was delusional
at this point, and he started rambling on to the police.
Who this is before tape recorders. They brought in a
stenographer to record everything that he was babbling, so they
had a transcription of it. They transcribed a number of
things that he said that just they couldn't make sense of.
So let me read you some of this. A boy

(09:12):
has never wept nor dashed one thousand Kim, Kim. I
don't know what that means. You can play jacks and
girls do that with a softball and do tricks with it.
I don't know. Oh, oh, dog biscuit. And when he
is happy, he doesn't get snappy.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Okay, dog biscuits, all.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Right, yep. He also rambled on, get ready for this one.
I'll get you the cash out of the box. There's
enough in it to buy four five more, Lulu, drive
me back to Phoenicia. Don't be a dope. Don't be
a dope, Lulu. We better get those liberty bonds out
of the box and cash them. Wonder who owns these woods.

(09:58):
He'll never know what's betterried in him.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
That's a little more interesting than dog biscuits. It seems
to make a little more sense than yes, yes, it
does well.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Dutch was known to be pretty frugal, especially compared to
the other gangsters who were super flashy. He didn't dress
over the top, he didn't have a huge house, he
didn't drive fancy cars. So it kind of backs up
this Bury treasure idea that he kept his cash and
kept all this stuff. Locals reported seeing two guys in

(10:31):
fedoras digging a hole in a grove of pine trees
near the Soapis Creek, Sopus Creek. But nothing has ever
been found.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yet yet yet yet, So get yourself a fedora, get
yourself a shovel.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yes, these pine trees were going to be well over
one hundred years old at this point. Yeah creek, and
I guess are digging as permission. Whoever homes now?

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Do we know that he definitely had this water proof safe.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
We know he had the safe that we know he
had safe made up. He had it air tight and
water tight tight. Which it wasn't that unusual for someone
to have that made up. You know, banks would have
safes or businesses. Yeah, so that wasn't too.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
But that has never been found in one of his
business's structures or anything. No, No, the lost Dutch Schultz
mine of Wow, and I'm sure people have been looking.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
I would think so, I would think so, But so
far unless somebody found it and was smart enough to
never tell.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Anybody ever, say, that would be the thing to do.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Right, But now, even if there is cash in it,
you're talking about cash that was printed before nineteen thirty five.
Somebody's got not his circulation anymore. So if and liberty bonds, yeah,
uh huh yeah, So if you brought that to a bank,
that's uh even you know nowadays with heightened scrutiny, right,
it's right, Yeah, someone you would think would notice it

(12:13):
unless you yeah, you know, the bills look different, so
if you tried to spend it at a store, you
might get a side eye from cashiers. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
I think we should get Mike and uh form a
syndicate to you should get for the treasure.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, so I've got metal detectors.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
Okay, well I didn't know that. Thank you for not
sharing that over the past eight years, that you have
metal detectors.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
What what if you wanted to.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Look for I don't know, but now the opportunities on
the table.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yes, I have some good metal detective you know.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
What, I really shouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
If it's a gadget, I probably have it or have had.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Well, between you and and Bob, I would imagine.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, yes, we have a theremin so you know.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yes that you brought down.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yes, yes, so I love gadgets and I love hunting
for things. So this is right up my alley.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
All right, so we may have some work to do.
And if you never hear from us again, guess what.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
We are on a beach somewhere spending Dutch schultz ill gotten.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Booty with a metal detector, looking with a metal detector,
looking for it. There you go? Yeah, all right, I'm down,
So I'm to take us out so we can go.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yes, so we better le Yeah, let's get this show
over quickly because I need to grab a shovel and
my metal detector and jump in the car and head
to Phoenician, New York.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Perfect.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
So thank you for joining us on this short but
tantalizing episode and we will see you all again. If
you are not a victim of murder in the Hudson
Valley or if you found Dutch Schultz treasure, this is.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Hudson River Radio dot com. Yeah.
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